Budadiri County West legislator Nathan Nandala Mafabi has gone bare knuckles against State Minister of Finance for Planning David Bahati as he has described him as the Minister of borrowing.
While appearing before a local TV talk show, Nandala said that whenever he sees Bahati on the floor of parliament, he’s always proposing for government to borrow more money.
Just this week, Parliament discussed about the National Economy Committee Report on Gov’t proposal to borrow USD $78.2 M from the International Development Association of the World Bank Group to finance the Uganda Investing in Forests and Protected Areas for Climate-Smart Development Project.
But before parliament had approved UDB to borrow $15 M from European Investment Bank; $10 M from International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation; $20 M from OPEC Fund for International Development; and $20M from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa.
Plenary also approved Gov’t request to borrow Kuwait Dinars 6 million ($ 19.8M) from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to support the program of operations for the years 2020-2024 for Uganda Development Bank Limited.
Mafabi explained that the biggest challenge with the current regime is poor planning that has always led to unnecessary expenditure.
“Our main problem in this country is planning without knowing and I’m so worried that the people we have entrusted with the responsibility to plan for our country don’t understand.
David Bahati is like a man who goes to the bank to borrow money with a good plan yet actually he is not going to follow the plan,” said Mafabi.
According to Mafabi, Uganda’s loan interest rates are high because government is borrowing from domestic banks.
“You (Bahati) are not supposed to be Minister of planning. You are Minister of borrowing,” he said before urging government to start planning to spend the little money we have.